College Algebra Research Paper

General Education requirements for students results in a longer time to actually work on minor and major requirements. Allysa Pracz, Oral Communications teacher at Northern Illinois University, holds a just and honest opinion that General Educations classes are useless because they may have nothing to do with one’s major. For instance, a college algebra course would obviously have no effect on a student studying Creative Writing. The only question left to answer would be, why do such requirements exist? It could also be understood that courses required in fact focus on what students should have learned in high school. Pracz recalls her freshman year in college, stating, “I remember as a freshman taking classes such as ENGL 103 or COMS 100. Yes, both classes may be beneficial to some, but they mostly just rehash concepts and skills that the majority of students already possess or will pick up in other courses throughout their academic careers.” College students should be somewhat familiar with the basic concepts of many subjects offered, such as writing papers or algebra. It could also be proven that students are not quite interested in classes that they see as useless. For instance, students who major in Apparel Merchandising would have no interest in taking biology courses. Disinterest could ultimately result in bad grades and a low GPA for students.

Algebra is a critical aspect of mathematics which provides the means to calculate unknown values. According to Bednarz, Kieran and Lee (as cited in Chick & Harris, 2007), there are three basic concepts of simple algebra: the generalisation of patterns, the understanding of numerical laws and functional situations. The understanding of these concepts by children will have an enormous bearing on their future mathematical capacity. However, conveying these algebraic concepts to children can be difficult due to the abstract symbolic nature of the math that will initially be foreign to the children. Furthermore, each child’s ability to recall learned numerical laws is vital to their proficiency in problem solving and mathematical confidence. It is obvious that teaching algebra is not a simple task. Therefore, the importance of quality early exposure to fundamental algebraic concepts is of significant importance to allow all

Furthermore, I started working on Algebra 2 problems which were a little more tedious than the ones from the other class, yet, they still entertained me. After a couple of weeks in that class, the teacher approached me and asked me if I would like to try a more challenging class; AP Math. I saw it as a good challenge and gave it a chance. Now that didn’t turn out as I expected. The teacher was from a foreign country and had a terrible accent. As a result, I couldn’t understand anything. I felt lost from the moment she started talking to that end I couldn’t follow. I was trying to learn English and had enough with my other classes. I didn’t want my favorite class to become stressful, so I decided to go back to Algebra 2. The teacher welcomed

One reason algebra II should be required is that it prepares students for college. One expert said "Students who take algebra II are more likely to have a full-time job with benefits after graduation and be healthier.”Also, taking away these requirements would leave students unprepared for college and technical school. The article states “the new changes still require algebra II for honors diplomas, or for diploma plans focusing on science, technology, engineering and math courses. Honor diplomas can ensure automatic admission to Texas public universities.” This proves

I have found that college Math is much different than high school math. College math class meets less often and covers material at about twice the pace than a High School course does. You are expected to understand new material much more quickly. So it

Disturbingly, “nearly one-fifth of high school students and over 50 percent of middle school students are enrolled in math classes whose teachers neither majored or minored in math” (Drew, 2011, p.9). In 2000, 31 percent of high

He asks the question “Why do I need college algebra?”(Adams 19). I can relate to this as many of us in today's society are in college and we look at our degree requirements and think “Why do I have to take this class” to ourselves. In Adams case he only has “the benefit of a ninth grade education.”(Adams 18). It is clear that he needs algebra, but he tries to exempt himself from this requirement. He contacts friends that are attorneys and they say that there are no courses in his profession that even require algebra or more specifically, college algebra (20).

Algebra was awful! I did not realize why in the world I had to take it! I knew I would not use it ever in my field. Wrong again! I used it a lot in the BSHS program. I never connected Human Services with Business. Once I was challenged with courses such as Statistics and Financial Management, I realized very quickly that Math and Human Services Management relate.

I was a junior at Brentwood High School, who arrived to the United states from Peru a couple of months ago, and after complaining for three months, Christine Burrows, my guidance counselor, decided to change my Algebra class by a “higher” level math.

Since a public school district’s success is determined by state and national assessment, officials in school systems across the country have sought to make changes to effectively address the academic deficits of students. A push in education over the past couple decades has been the race to Calculus and the belief that this path is necessary for a student to succeed in advanced math courses in college. Although there has been a dramatic increase in the number of students in high school Calculus, enrollment in Calculus 2 at college has remained relatively unchanged for the last two decades (Bressoud, 2004; 2009). Many students who have taken Calculus in high school are arriving unprepared for Calculus in college (Bressoud, 2007).

After reading, annotating, and analyzing the following article, “Petition to Waive the University mathematics Requirement”, I concluded to say No to his request. I don’t think that Mr. Adams should be exempted from taking the math requirements because of several reasons. First, his arguments presents that the college drops a class that is required for everyone that is in the same major as him. This is not reasonable because this challenges the very system of assessing classes to students. If they waive this class for him, any

The new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics bring a new opportunity to the classrooms of the United States that many people view as a controversial. According to the NCTM (2013) “The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency” (par. 1). While some people believe that the Common Core State Standards may hinder progress in the classroom for many reasons including too much government control, teaching to the test, an excessive focus on language arts and math, and wasted resources, others agree with the NCTM statement about that claims the standards help increase conceptual understanding, reasoning, and skill fluency.

Kinder through first grade student primarily focus on addition and subtraction; third to fifth they’re introduced to division, multiplication, and fractions; sixth grade to eighth grade students begin ratios, proportions, and pre-algebra concepts. Common Core sets back the previous standards about a year. It has lowered the expectation level of students, and previous curriculums had more advanced

Geometry and Algebra are so crucial to the development of the world it is taught to every public high school in the United States, around 14.8 million teenagers each year (National Center for Education Statistics). Mathematics is the engine powering our world; our stocks, economy, technology, and science are all based off from math. Math is our universal and definite language “I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the certitude and evidence of their reasonings.” (Rene Descartes, 1637).

Most students in my algebra II class, in high school, disliked math substantially. Math was only required to be taken for two years and if you were going to attend college, Algebra II was a requirement. When their two years were up, I could say that about half the students did not continue math. Many students in my Pre-Cal class always had a thing about asking the teacher when they were ever going to solve a problem like that in the “real world”. I noticed that the ones who had lower standards for example, they were set on going to the junior college or going straight to working, did not continue math after two years in high school. The students who were set on going to a four year university continued on with math. The students with lower standards did not care to go above and beyond. This had me thinking. If some students felt that math was useless in the “real world”, why are we required to take it? In my opinion I feel that students should be required to take a math class as a GE requirement, but it should be math that is applied to the “real world”. Those who need math in their career can continue their math studies even further.